He set out at noon. In the afternoon Regina went for one of her rare visits to her mother-in-law. She stayed for dinner, and once more made part of the picture she had so detested, but now she had very different feelings from those of old. Thinking it over, she asked herself why that picture had appeared to her so vulgar. Merely as types of character the personages were interesting, or at least seemed so now. Arduina and Massimo discussed celebrated authors--she with real animus, he with contempt for her. Gaspare told the conjugal misfortunes of one of his colleagues. Signor Mario picked his teeth, and Signora Anna lamented the terrible conduct of her servant. It was amusing--for once in a way. The dinner was good; they drank and laughed. Claretta admired herself in the glass, flirted with Massimo and even with Gaspare. In fact, nothing in the environment had changed; yet Regina was no longer disgusted. Claretta was less elegant than herself, and Signora Anna took quite maternal satisfaction in pointing this out. She asked her niece why she didn't do her hair like Regina's. "This suits me better," drawled the young lady, putting her hand to her head and settling the lace butterfly which decked her locks; "besides, it's the fashion." "Excuse me," said Massimo, "the women of the aristocracy do their hair like Regina." "Madame Makuline, perhaps?" said Claretta, ironically. Regina glanced at her. Did she mean anything, the pretty cousin? Did she know anything? When the others sat down to cards Regina went into the bedroom which once had seemed to her a haunt of incubi. It was open to the balcony, and the moon illuminated the curtains, projecting a silver dazzle across the interior. The great bed was a white square in the centre of the room, corners of chairs and tables caught the light, a scent of pinks perfumed the silence and the peace of that great matrimonial chamber, nest of humdrum _bourgeois_ felicity. Regina thought if Antonio had brought her to Rome on a night like this, and had introduced her into that room shining thus, wrapped in the dreams of mid-May, nothing would have happened that had happened. She leaned from the balcony; pinks were at her feet; over a sweet heaven of velvety blue passed the moon distant and melancholy, distant and pure, like a sail lost in the immensity of the ocean of dream. Naturally Regina's thoughts flew to the terrace on the shore of the Albano lake, where rose-leaves fell like butterflies on the iridescent mother-o'-pearl of the moonlit water. What was Antonio doing? Was it possible that the monstrous dream which crushed her could have any reality? Under the infinite purity of the heavens could such wickedness be wrought on earth? But when she had returned home, the incubus settled down on her again, victor once more in that strife which too often proved her the weaker.